Ben Levick

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• ... getting a start-up off the ground, ramping up the music happening at the GSB, and taking a long overdue trip to my former life in NYC!

• Global class with Condoleezza Rice, Leadership Labs, Global Ops with Hau Lee, eBusiness with Haim Mendelson were all favorites
• Going with 300 to 400 classmates to Vegas for one night at Vegas FOAM, playing in bands for one-off concerts at the Stanford Coffee House and at the big end-of-year "GSB Unplugged" concert, and - of course -performing and partying with the GSB Show cast and crew.
• Touchy Feely class really helped me understand how I'm perceived by others and by myself. Also, the Global Study Trip to China and my subsequent GMIX there were extremely eye-opening in better understanding how I interact with different cultures. The China GER specifically probably falls high on the list for academic, social, and self-discovery.

• Managing Growing Enterprises with Irv Grousbeck is a huge growth experience thanks to his insights as well as the impressive. entrepreneurs he brings in to class. I'm also optimistic about my start-up team in S356.
• Night of walking around Atherton to various houses of my MBA2 friends and enjoying their company, plus hosting some of the large social gatherings of the year at my house.
• The process of forming a start-up team, and some of the difficult conversations I had in our Negotiations class.

Today's  biggest accomplishment: Got the band stuff set up finally and am ready for a good BBL tomorrow
Today's biggest challenge: Never found the time and motivation to get to either of the major papers I have to write in the next couple of days
Most fun: Brunch with friends this morning was great

Today's biggest accomplishment: Re-engaging with the founders from my summer job was great, and the potential lead for my start-up has me excited to pitch it to my team tomorrow. Also, finishing the last of my midterm papers for the quarter
Today's biggest challenge: I did have to respond to a long cold call in Formation of New Ventures, but otherwise it was a relatively carefree day. I was pretty tired driving to and from SF, so staying awake was a challenge too.
Most fun: FOAM, of course, and getting to grab lunch with a distinguished CEO

Today's biggest accomplishment: It may sound trite, but just having the time to cross off some basic housekeeping stuff (buying plane tickets, scheduling meetings, paying a parking ticket) are always elusive, so the fact that I managed to pare down my to-do list considerably was an accomplishment in itself.
Today's biggest challenge: Coming up with a solid idea for my start-up class has continued to be tough, but I'm confident that our team will get there with a few more sessions
Most fun: Both the ESP dinner and Singaporean dinner were great ways to kick back and relax for a few hours and just enjoy the company of classmates I've grown close to in the last year and a half

Today's biggest accomplishment: Getting ahead enough on reading to be able to enjoy the weekend in peace. And getting to NY successfully!
Today's biggest challenge: Waking up to get to the airport
Most fun: Reconnecting with old friends, remembering that there is a life outside of the GSB!

8:30 AM Wake up after a fairly big night out and get my bearings.

This is my room in my MBA2 pass-down house.

9:15 AM Coffee from Starbucks in Menlo Park. Read some papers for class on Tuesday about leadership decisions.

10:00 AM Set up our garage so bands can practice. I'm the head of the GSB Band Club, and I want to make sure that the bands in new first- year class have a place to play. Our club has a lot of equipment, so our garage is a good space where it can all sit and then bands can come over to practice.

11:00 AM Brunch with classmates at a Menlo Park house - it's awesome to see some people I don't get to spend a lot of time with and the food is delicious.

1:00 PM I drive to the NGP CoLab to meet with S356 Group to brainstorm start-up ideas. We're trying to pick a topic in e-commerce that we're interested in and think can produce results over the course of our class. We settle on a research plan going forward.

Doing a little work at the sunny Knight Center.

4:00 PM Have to stop by another second-year house in downtown Palo Alto to pick up drums. A couple of pieces of equipment are missing, which is kind of annoying, but you have to chalk a few of these things up to the fact that there's so much turnover in who lives in these houses.

5:00 PM While it's on my mind, I head over to my friend Abe's house east of Palo Alto, and he gives me a drum lesson that I won at the White Party last year. The White Party is a major charity auction we do at Stanford.

Abe and I are both in the band club and have played a lot before, so it's fun to get some good advice from a pro. My stick holding technique can use some work, but at least my rhythm is pretty good.

6:30 PM I'm still kind of tired after Saturday, so I decide it's time to head home. Me and my housemate Atit order Thai food which we go to pick up. It's a relaxing night, and we both realize we don't eat at home often enough.

9:00 PM I don't normally get a chance to fully relax, so I spend an hour and a half indulging in some mindless TV and fall asleep for half an hour at some point. Given another busy week ahead, I feel justified in enjoying a little bit of downtime this Sunday.

10:00 PM I'm hosting a BBL tomorrow about music at the GSB (it is called a Brown Bag Lunch, although nobody brings brown bag lunches). I put together my Powerpoint presentation, which consists of both my own slides plus info submitted from several of my classmates who are interested in underground music, DJing, Jazz and more.

11:30 PM Catch up on email for the day and plan for the morning, where I have a golf class and then some other meetings before my BBL.

12:00 Midnight Bedtime

6:20 AM Shower and drive to class.

7:10 AM Drive from Casablanca to the GSB.

Getting coffee at Coupa's.

7:20 AM Write some of my MGE midterm paper and quickly prepare for S356: Creating a Startup.

8:00 AM Hear from some of last year's S356 entrepreneurs as they talk about Social Finance, the venture that they are still working on today.

Jake Stahl (right) and I are getting ready for Irv Grousbeck's Managing Growing Enterprises class.

10:00 AM Managing Growing Enterprises with Irv Grousbeck. The speaker today is a tenured CEO in the telecom industry, and we role play some of the tough conversations he had to have with his partners and board members during his career.

12:00 Noon Pick up a delicious Asian salad from Arbuckle and take it to a small group Q&A with the MGE speaker. I ask him how he managed being the CEO of multiple successful enterprises at the same time, and his response was "very badly."

1:00 PM For Formation of New Ventures (yes, my third entrepreneurship class of the day) the speaker is a GSB alum who is building the world's first and most successful unregulated sport aircraft. We talk about the difficulties of raising funding for such a long-term project, and he gives us some advice on how to keep a team motivated despite significant risks and setbacks.

3:00 PM Me, Ilya Abyzov (left), and some friends take a break in upper Arbuckle to make travel plans for the winter break, but I have to go before we're able to get much work done. We reschedule for tomorrow.

Run into Maria Lambert who is also documenting her week for this "Day in the Life" feature.

Working on the fourth floor of the Bass Center, which houses the library.

3:45 PM I hop in my car and drive up to San Francisco. The 101 is faster but the 280 is more beautiful so I do the latter.

Downtown San Francisco.

5:00 PM I have a meeting with my former summer employers, a couple of GSB alumni who are founders of a B2B mobile technology company located in downtown SF. It's my first time back since the summer and it is fun to see the team again. I talk to the founders about the company direction, plus ways that my S356 startup team can collaborate with them.

8:00 PM Back at the GSB for a GSB Show kickoff presentation. The GSB Show is a huge satirical musical we put on every Spring which involves 150 classmates, 1000 audience members and a major budget. I'm the Music Director this year so I talk to some of the first years to see if there is interest for an Assistant Musical Director position.

9:30 PM Head home at last and catch up on emails, plus say hi to some housemates I haven't seen in a couple of days.

10:30 PM Head to Redwood City for this week's FOAM open bar night - it's Oktoberfest theme so a couple of German beers are in order.

1:00 AM Bedtime

5:45 AM Wake up

9:30 AM Breakfast

10:00 AM Golf class on the Stanford driving range. Working on my long irons and woods today.

Coffee from Starbucks again.

11:00 AM Returned home to do a little bit of schoolwork for tomorrow and to eat lunch. Also booked some of my plane tickets for winter break - New Zealand, Australia, and India.

The state of the sky that Wednesday. Not bad for late October!

12:50 PM Picked up a sandwich from Village Cheese Shop in the Town and Country mall near campus, but was in a rush to get to a meeting for which I was already late.

1:00 PM Ate my sandwich while we did more ideating on my startup. We had lost some potential partners but got some good ideas from my former employers so we spent some time "ideating" - listing potential solutions to the problems we were trying to solve.

In a tribute to Steve Jobs we compile all of our Apple products.

3:00 PM Met with my friends to continue working on travel plans for winter, and then had to rush to finish a powerpoint presentation that was due by 7pm. I had to skip my afternoon Computer Science seminar in order to do this, but usually there are good notes so hopefully I can read them and catch up by next week.

Doing some last minute S356 work with Jason Lee (right).

6:00 PM Celebration dinner for the Entrepreneurial Summer Program. It was great to hear all of the lessons learned by classmates working in startups this summer. I took the time to re-evaluate my entrepreneurial ambitions and to recognize what an interesting network of people I'm around here.

7:30 PM Grabbed a second dinner with friends at a Singaporean restaurant in Menlo Park. We hadn't caught up in a while and one of the friends who was Singaporean wanted to show off the food. I lost track of time and had to rush to get back to campus for Talk12.

9:00 PM Talk12 is a weekly event where a classmate gets up in front of a group of peers and "tells his story." It's amazing to see the diverse experiences of classmates, the adversity many of them have had to overcome, and the thoughtfulness everybody takes in thinking about their life journey.

After Talk12, I stayed around to talk to friends, and then went to the Bass Center to print assignments for the next day.

10:30 PM The GSB Epicurean club was hosting a kickoff event at Schwab Residential Center, the first year dorm. I spent 20 minutes catching up with one of the Schwab staff members so I only made it to the tail end of the event, but there was still some snacks left for me to devour.

Looking a bit confused at the E@T club event in Schwab.

11:30 PM Finally drove home close to midnight, and settled in to do some readings for classes that start bright and early on Thursday. I decided to put off a few of them for lunch tomorrow since I was falling asleep.

1:00 AM Bedtime

6:30 AM Woke up and took a quick shower. I don't have classes today so I'm traveling to New York City for the first time in more than a year!

6:45 AM One of my roommates graciously drives me to the airport, saving me the hassle of having to take Caltrain, find a cab, or park in long-term parking. Thanks Sandeep!

8:30 AM After an obnoxious SFO security line, the flight takes off on time, and I'm off to JFK. That said, I have a lot of work to do so I take the plunge and pay for in-flight internet so that I can stay in touch with my team. Among other things, I have to help out a friend who is applying to the GSB, fill out some health care forms, book one more plane ticket, help my summer internship startup with a case study they're doing, and maybe get a little ahead in my reading for Tuesday (I won't get home until Monday night). So this will unfortunately not be a 5-hour nap.

11:00 AM However, by now I am tired and will probably take a nap anyways.

12:00 Noon Back awake and ready for more work!

5:00 PM (EST) Finally touch down at JFK having lost three hours in the time zone difference. Feels great to be back in the city after so long, I got excited seeing the New York skyline on the way in.

6:30 PM After getting out of the airport, grabbing Starbucks, and taking the Airtrain and LIRR into Penn Station, I finally get to my friends' apartment where I'm staying.

They're not home yet, so I grab a quick beer at a place I used to frequent and catch up on GSB goings on via email, Facebook, Foursquare, and whatever other apps I happen to have on my iPhone.

7:30 PM Finally get into my friends' apartment, a 52nd story place with a beautiful panoramic view of Manhattan. Spend some time ogling the view and feeling nostalgic, plus catching up with my friends.

9:00 PM A good friend graciously offered to get a late dinner (since I'm still on California time) so we grab drinks and dinner at Scarpetta in Chelsea and converse into the evening.

11:00 PM I take a walk around the city just to see what's new, and pass by the Occupy Wall Street protests going on. It reminds me of a recent lecture in a class I took on Crisis Management at the GSB, where we talked about how the protests could gain more traction if they picked a specific target.

The new World Trade Center under construction.

2:00 AM Bedtime

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